Center pivot irrigation systems generally include a plurality of spans supported by a plurality of towers which travel in a circle about a pivot point while water is distributed to crops through various passageways, nozzles, and sprinkler heads supported by the towers and/or the spans.
Electric center pivot irrigation systems typically have main control panels at their pivots. A lack of standardization of these controls across different manufacturers makes it difficult for many users to program and control their irrigation systems, sometimes leading to costly mistakes, such as over- or under-watering.
Remote controls can simplify the operations of center pivot irrigation systems, but many irrigation systems do not include original remote controls. When remote controls are desired, one solution is to entirely replace the original control systems, but this can be prohibitively expensive. Another solution is to install after-market remote controls, but this can pose other problems. After-market remote controls are often installed on the opposite ends of the pivot from the original local controls, but some functions, such as alignment override of a safety circuit or alignment circuit after an alignment fault is experienced must still be performed at the main control panel located at the center pivot. Thus, these after-market remote controls typically provide limited control functionality.
An alignment fault may occur when one of the center pivot irrigation system's towers is not moving, such as if one of the towers is stuck in the mud, or experiencing a drivetrain or mechanical failure. To get the irrigation system back into alignment, the user typically must reverse the direction of at least one of the towers until the misaligned tower is back into a relatively straight line with the other towers. Then the irrigation system may attempt travel in the original forward direction again.
The safety circuit or alignment circuit of the of the center pivot irrigation system is generally designed to switch from a closed circuit configuration to an open circuit configuration when the irrigation system experiences an alignment fault condition. Once the safety circuit or alignment circuit is in the open circuit configuration, manual action at the main control panel is required to move the irrigation system towers in either direction. Specifically, an operator may be required to hold both an alignment override button on the main control panel and a direction button for the desired direction (such as reverse). As the user presses and holds these two buttons, electrical signal temporarily bypasses the safety circuit to allow the towers to move until they get back into normal alignment and the safety circuit closes or returns to the closed circuit configuration.
This manual override requires a user to first confirm that one of the towers of the irrigation system is stuck by walking around and visually inspecting the towers to find the reason for the alignment fault, and then to walk back to the pivot point where the main control panel is located to commence with the override operations. This can be time-consuming and inconvenient for the user.
This background discussion is intended to provide information related to the present invention which is not necessarily prior art.